Doctors treat patients differently based on their own political views, study shows

Political biases are not hard to find in 2016. Thanks to the rise of the internet and social media, knowing everyone’s in-depth political views has become extremely easy. People whose opinions on political matters you never would have known are now accessible right at the your fingertips thanks to Facebook and Twitter. While this is mostly harmless, new studies show that one’s political views could potentially be a lot more dangerous than we ever expected.

Whether your doctor is a Republican or Democrat could potentially effect the quality of care you are receiving from them, a new study published in the journal of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences shows. Issues dealing with pregnancy and drug use are among the top of the list when it comes to differences in the care received by doctors who identify as Democrat or Republican. While the manner in which they vote is harmlessly different, the manner in which they offer their advice could be a little bit more harmful.

Erin Blakemore of The Washington Post reports of the study that “Republicans were most concerned about scenarios that included multiple prior abortions and marijuana use. Democrats were most concerned about firearm access and patients who had sexual relationships with sex workers.” How these situations differ doesn’t seem all that different on paper, but when it comes to health, good and bad treatment can all come down to the minute details.

The well-being of their patients should be the top priority to these doctors — not their political agendas. However, whether or not they realize it, doctors could potentially be putting the lives of their patients at risk by refusing to acknowledge the truth when it comes to which method of treatment is the safest and most effective.

We see this all the time with Big Pharma-influenced doctors pretending that chemicals are more effective at healing health woes than cannabis. While this case isn’t nearly as disgusting , it’s still worrisome that people that are supposed to keep Americans healthy could be giving all of us misinformation due to their own biases. It doesn’t matter where you stand on the political spectrum, you should be looking out for your fellow man at all costs.

We’re living in extremely dangerous and threatening times, and we really need to get to a point when we can put our trust back into the leaders of our respective communities. The first step may be getting doctors to tell us the truth.

Sources:

WashingtonPost.com

LATimes.com